V12 Vantage Walkaround | Aston Martin

Hello, I'm Marek Reitman. I'm the Chief Creative Officer for Aston Martin and behind me is one of our most iconic cars, the V12 Vantage. V12 Vantage is really about driver focus. It's about lightweight construction, lightweight materials and giving the driver the sensation of the power and the torque that exists within the chassis and the engine. It really started as we entered back into the modern day at Le Mans racing V12s in the DBR9. Then 15 years ago, we shoehorned the biggest engine, largest capacity into our smallest chassis. V12 Vantage was born. What's truly unique on V12 Vantage, if you look at the face of the car, and the extra air that's needed to breathe and cool that V12 engine, it's still a classic Aston Martin grille, but the face has the drama of a V12. It has the outer cooling vents which really widen the car and then if you look at the front splitter and the shape the front splitter has to balance the car in terms of its frontal downforce and the aero through the front of the car to cool and breathe that engine. If you look then further up the hood, you'll see the outlet that's needed because of the increased size of the radiator, how we need to take air off the radiator to make sure that the engine is breathing and cooling correctly and that becomes a massive feature of V12 Vantage. Look back to some of our very classic Le Mans winning racing cars and you'll see a similar feature there. If you look down the side of V12 Vantage, the influences of aerodynamics, how the air exits the wheel arch through the side sill and this massive air dam which is there to expel the air from the wheel arch and actually control the airflow down the side of the car and then these low skirts that actually help with the aerodynamics that push the car onto the ground and if you look at the rear wheels and how they push their way through the body, you can't really see the overhangs. This car just wraps incredibly well and it's all about that platform that it sits on and then if you look at the wheels, the lightweight construction, how we've taken and reduced the spoke size of the wheel to distribute the weight so they can hold the power of that V12 engine. Because of that large front splitter and the downforce, of course we have a rear wing which is controlling the back of the car. This is all about stability towards the rear of the car but it's a dynamic looking rear wing as well. It has an incredible form and shape, it is really sculpted by the airflow and if you look at the rear diffuser which is working to exit the air from the underside of the car, all this is done for the aerodynamic flow to make sure we maximise performance and get V12 Vantage working at its peak. If we move on to the interior of V12 Vantage, one of the key principles again is about that racing heritage, about that driving heritage. So you're seated as a driver in a lightweight constructed seat, carbon fibre back and a carbon lower to really cosset you into the driving position but obviously save weight and create something truly unique along with the nameplate, the badge that you get on the inside of the car to tell you how special your car is. It is a true driver focused car and it really has been a labour of love to get to something which not just looks incredible but drives exactly the same way it looks, something that Aston Martin prides itself upon. V12 Vantage is truly about passion, power and performance. Hello, my name is Drummond Jacoy, I'm the head of vehicle engineering here at Aston Martin. The V12 Vantage is such an exciting program because it's all about performance. Let me take you through the key performance figures of V12 Vantage. It's 700 PS, 753 Newton meters of torque, 0 to 100 kilometers per hour, 3.4 seconds. That is a power to weight ratio of 390 PS per tonne. That is an uplift of over 20% to the Vantage V8. So the amazing power unit in this V12 Vantage is a V12, 5.2 litre twin turbo engine. The 700 horsepower and the 753 Newton meters of torque is absolutely amazing in this car. We've done a huge amount of work of recalibrating this engine specifically for this car. That includes things like power and torque curves per gear which has an amazing effect on driving dynamics. So another crucial element in achieving the performance targets for the V12 Vantage is lightweighting. In the V12 Vantage we have a carbon fiber front bumper, clam, fender, sills, roof and rear wing. Over and above that we have a lightweight exhaust system and a lightweight battery. A crucial element to achieving the driving dynamics targets for the V12 Vantage was stiffening the body. We have increased the lateral stiffness of the body by around 6.7% and the torsional stiffness of the body by around 8%. Furthermore we have increased the front spring rates by 50%, the rear spring rates by 40% and increased the top mount stiffness by around 13%. The benefit of all this being increased body control. This combined with the new adaptive damping system and roll bars and a retune of the steering calibration gives an all-round dynamic package. The Vantage V12 comes with carbon ceramic brakes as standard. This is a weight advantage of 23 kilograms in unsprung mass which is a huge factor contributing to the driving dynamics. The unique calibration of the eight-speed automatic transmission enhances shift speed and driver interactions. These are learnings we've taken from the V12 Speedster and the F1 Edition Vantage. All these elements tie in to make the new V12 Vantage the fastest, fiercest Vantage we have ever made. It is the ultimate expression of extreme performance.